Tony Robinson
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 3 July 2011
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kirsty Young's castaway is the actor and broadcaster Tony Robinson.
His Baldrick to Rowan Atkinson's Blackadder turned idiocy into an art form and the series went on to become one of our best-loved comedies. The role changed his life but, he says, when he first saw the script he didn't think much of it: "It was only about eight lines of dialogue and none of them were funny - but it was with these incredible people. On the one hand, I thought what a lousy part and on the other hand I thought, I'd love to work with these people".
Record: The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - The Band Book: Middlemarch - George Eliot Luxury: A luxury bed and mattress.
Producer: Leanne Buckle.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:06.0 | For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast. |
| 0:10.0 | For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk. |
| 0:17.0 | Radio 4. My cast away this week is the actor, broadcaster and campaigner Tony Robinson, |
| 0:38.0 | his Baldrick to Rowan Atkinson's blackadder turned idiocy into an art form, filthy, downtrodden and perpetually clueless. |
| 0:46.8 | He made an unprepossessing dullard into glittering comedy gold. |
| 0:51.4 | For the past 18 years he's presented Channel 4's time team transforming the |
| 0:55.8 | crusty world of archaeology into prime time viewing. He says no matter how insecure I may be, there's part of me that says that if I work hard and stay relaxed, I can achieve anything. |
| 1:07.0 | It's not true, but it's a wonderful trick to have as part of your armour. |
| 1:11.0 | I'm wondering Tony Robinson, which part of that is the difficult |
| 1:14.9 | bit. Is it the staying relaxed? Oh, definitely the staying relaxed, yes. I always feel that with your work, |
| 1:20.7 | you spend most of the time putting up the scaffolding, and then the scary moment comes |
| 1:26.3 | when you take all the scaffolding down and you appear in front of the camera and just try and |
| 1:32.4 | look relaxed without any of the support that you've built up. |
| 1:35.0 | Yes, you have had a long and varied career. |
| 1:37.0 | We're going to talk about the writing, we're going to talk about the other documentaries you've made, |
| 1:40.4 | but of course we must instantly talk about Baldrick and that brilliant |
| 1:44.0 | peering of you and Rowan Atkinson. When you read that first script what did you think? |
| 1:48.4 | I didn't think much of it. It was about a week to go before the pilot was due to be made and it was only about eight lines of dialogue |
| 1:56.1 | and none of them were funny but it was with these incredible people and I'd never been to |
| 2:01.8 | Oxbridge I'd left school at 16 and I'd always thought, if only I could be involved in what I always thought of as Oxbridge comedy. |
| 2:08.4 | That was the week that was and, uh, faulty towers and all the stuff with John Fortune and John Byrd. I always thought, I've got a |
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